


an infinity of colors and starless skies

by cosmicwoosan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Colors, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Metaphors, Past Character Death, Wanderlust, for the writing contest u know, lotsa references if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25157923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwoosan/pseuds/cosmicwoosan
Summary: He remembers that one of his teachers in high school told him, “Look up at the stars in the night sky, not the neon signs above your head.”But for as long as he can remember, the night sky has always been starless.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	an infinity of colors and starless skies

**Author's Note:**

> Hi :)
> 
> This is the fic I entered for ateez's writing contest.
> 
> bonus points to you if you pick out the little references and hints i hid within this piece

For as long as he can remember, the night sky has always been starless.

Years and years ago, perhaps in middle school, Yeosang learned what stars are made of. They aren’t as exciting as the nursery rhymes and fantastical poems painted them to be; as it turned out, they’re just balls of gas and space debris, but somehow, they’re able to serve as one of the main sources of inspiration for the most beautiful pieces of art.

They also somehow symbolized hope. That was how Yeosang came to know them. His mother pointed up at the sky once, once on a day he can’t remember, and said, “That right there isn’t a star. That’s Venus, the planet over. Yet it shines as the brightest star in the sky.”

Yeosang was confused, but his mother went on to explain, “Sometimes, not all the brightest things in life are stars.”

Venus was the only thing that shined in the sky that night. The moon was somewhere else, dormant.

He eventually learned that the sun is also a star. The one and only star that consistently shines, every day, whether it’s shrouded by clouds or ravaged by storms, the hints of sunshine always peek through the darkness. It’s what makes daytime, daytime.

However, once the sun sets beneath the horizon, the stars in neighboring galaxies have a chance to shine.

The thing that troubles Yeosang is that he can’t remember ever seeing a night sky littered with the stars that are as beautiful as the books and movies and songs make them out to be.

Even now. As tattered Converse with torn soles and frayed laces guide him nowhere, the sky above him lacks the stars the adults told him to look at. He looks up every night, and for some reason, the sky taunts him with the mere possibility of holding the stars.

Does the universe hate him that much? Why does it refuse to show Yeosang the things he constantly wishes to see?

Yeosang walks a lot. Across the same streets, down the same roads, along the same sidewalks. Over dilapidated bridges and bustling crosswalks, rocky terrain and sordid puddles. Yeosang walks. His Converse are proof of that.

He’s seen sunrises and sunsets. He’s seen crescent moons and lunar eclipses. He’s seen thunder and lightning, rain and snow, petals of spring and leaves of autumn riding the waves of the wind. He’s seen the ocean where it meets the sand and dewdrops fall off of the tiniest blades of grass, and yet, he has not seen stars.

He doesn’t even see Venus sometimes.

When he would see Venus, he would remind himself that it’s not a star. The moon is not a star, either. The night sky always seems to be lonely, from Yeosang’s point of view. If he could, he would become one himself and offer his companionship, because he knows all too well what it feels like to be lonely.

He knows what the lackluster spotlight is like. He knows what it means to be an outcast, like when Venus and the moon are separated by a sea of black night sky; there is nobody. To be so close yet so far, attached yet detached from everyone else. If only the moon could reach out, to let the stars and Venus and anything else that could glow in the sky know that it’s _lonely._

Yeosang did that once.

He can’t remember how long ago it was, but he does know for a fact that it left a lasting impact. Like being struck by lightning, punched in the face by shrapnel from a meteorite, he found himself in a maelstrom of colors that was honestly quite overwhelming at first. But instead of being blinded by the colors, he was embraced by them instead.

He was wrapped up in his very own aurora after so long of being pelted by monstrous hailstones and enduring a single winter that lasted years. He finally found warmth. There were still no stars in the sky, but with these colors, there was no need.

For once, he felt like he belonged.

Yet he’s here. Beneath a tree with drooping branches and melancholy leaves as another spring day comes to a finale. Alone.

The colors are still here. Yeosang sees them everywhere he goes. On the clearest days, where the blue hues reflect themselves off the sky and the ocean’s surface and the gold sun spins on a wheel. On the darkest days, when storm clouds roll in and the sky turns black, accompanied by flashes of white lightning. On the milder days, where silver clouds turn the sky a sickly pale blue or a dreary shade of gray.

And every dawn and twilight, when the colors mingle, when purple appears among pale shades of orange and pink.

They are everywhere, as is Yeosang.

Everywhere his vibrant red Converse take him.

One night, at a bus stop where the fluorescent white glow of the convenience store behind him is the only thing to guide him, he taps on a waiting passenger’s shoulder.

“Um, excuse me…”

The man beneath a hat doesn’t even look up. Asleep, perhaps.

“Sir?” Yeosang nudges his shoulder. He remains asleep. “Sir, um… m-may I ask what time it is?”

The stranger must be in quite the deep sleep, as Yeosang’s voice and persistent nudging do nothing to wake him. So instead, he peeks at the man’s watch.

It’s seven minutes until midnight, meaning another spring day has come and gone. Just like the spring days before, and the winter days before those, and the autumn days before those.

The bus arrives, the hiss and whir of it startling the stranger awake. He boards it, as does Yeosang, who follows him like a shadow. There are a few other passengers, two of which are asleep.

It’s dangerous to fall asleep on a bus, Yeosang thinks. There’s a high probability of missing your stop if you do.

He watches the man from before fall asleep again, not once sparing a single glance at him before those weary eyes slip shut.

-

Yeosang is on the shore now.

His bare feet wiggle beneath the sand as he feels it tickle the spaces between his toes. It feels good to rid himself of those Converse every now and again.

It’s a particularly cloudy day. The ocean breeze is stronger because of it, and it tussles Yeosang’s hair. He breathes in the salty seawater air and gazes out at the vast blue right before his eyes that spills low tide onto the sand beneath him.

He’s seen this ocean before. Plenty of times, actually. Online, in person. He’s lost track of how many times he’s been here.

He crouches until his knees are drawn to his chest and watches the clouds, waiting for the sun to emerge from them.

It doesn’t. But he stays until nighttime, when the clouds finally depart and the moonlight sends a golden sheen across the water’s rippling surface. The sound of the tranquil waves meeting the sand couldn’t even begin to compete with the shrill voice Yeosang hears just then.

A little boy, probably further down the beach, is screaming, “It’s the sea! The sea!”

Yeosang chuckles to himself.

This moment is golden.

-

A neon city.

He is particularly fond of nighttime. Depending on where he is, nights can either be dreadfully dismal or neon-colored glory. In this instance, he finds himself in the city, where blinding lights create an illusion of hopes and dreams, a escape of sorts, that Yeosang had wished to find at one point in his life.

The stars in the sky that he never saw weren’t blinding. He remembers that one of his teachers in high school told him, “Look up at the stars in the night sky, not the neon signs above your head.”

His teacher was trying to get him to become a realist, perhaps. It was just never in Yeosang’s nature to be one.

Not when his head was in the clouds and his dreams were hidden within a rainbow of possibilities.

To defy the teacher that lived to crush his students’ dreams, Yeosang learned to look at neither. After all, the stars were never there for him to begin with.

However, in this city, where neon signs are everywhere, he has no choice but to look at them. Still, determined to stick to his defiance, he stares straight ahead of himself, occasionally glancing down, and walks.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but he assumes it can’t be that late judging by the amount of people still wandering around. Though the sky is dark and starless again, the luminescence of a single city is enough to create a galaxy worth of stars.

He waits at a crosswalk, one body among many. There’s a group of boys to his left laughing about something.

As soon as the signal switches, one of the boys darts out from the group to the center of the crosswalk, where he begins to dance like a fool.

It reminds Yeosang of his old friends.

Though the public remains unheeding to this boy’s antics, his friends follow and laugh, cheering and encouraging him to continue. Yeosang doesn’t even make it halfway across before the poor boy is scurrying away to the opposite end.

Beneath the violet glow of a neon sign, the boy shields himself behind a garbage can that does little to conceal him. When his friends catch up to him, they pull him up and pat him on the back, probably teasing him a little bit, and he smiles out of joy, not out of embarrassment.

It must be a blessing to have such amazing friends.

-

It’s raining.

People have their umbrellas open. Yeosang has the hood of his dark red jacket. He stands beneath an awning to a café to shield himself from the rain, and he watches the sea of people and the rain droplets that slip off their umbrellas.

There is a wide array of colors here despite the roads being covered by a thin layer of mist, but the umbrella that catches Yeosang’s eye out of all the colors is black.

It belongs to a man dressed in all black as well. How odd, Yeosang thinks.

The darkest object among the rainbow sky of umbrellas shines the brightest now.

He watches as the man arrives at a nearby restaurant to meet a friend. Through the window, Yeosang sees the man and his friend ordering when another man approaches them. The two friends’ faces light up then, and Yeosang presumes that it must be another friend of theirs that they hadn’t been expecting to see.

How coincidental, miraculous even, that another friend had been there at that exact moment.

Three friends now sit and laugh together at one of the tables near the window. Seeing them smiles makes Yeosang smile, even in such gloom.

-

It’s nearing summer. As the sun sets later in the day, the sky’s vivid blue remains visible longer for more people to admire.

Except Yeosang sees nobody admiring the sky’s brilliant hue. It’s no surprise, since the city’s lights reflect off of silver buildings and skyscrapers, creating its own sky and stars.

Yeosang doesn’t believe he’s been to this area before. There are trees that he doesn’t know the names of and signs that he hasn’t read before. There are people he hasn’t seen and voices he hasn’t heard.

All the while, the sky darkens once more as Yeosang follows these two men walking side-by-side. One is eating ice cream and offers it to his friend, who shakes his head.

“We have plenty more to eat,” that friend says, glancing down at the bag hanging from his companion’s arm. It’s a bag filled to the brim with snacks. Yeosang chuckles.

He mindlessly follows the two friends until he loses them in a crowd of patrons at a mall. Around him, silver structures reflect white lights at him, blinding him, almost as he’d imagine the stars would.

But he wouldn’t know.

-

Yeosang is by the ocean again.

He doesn’t know why he’s so drawn to the sea, but maybe the sight is calming. Maybe the atmosphere puts him at ease and washes away his worries and sorrows and brings him back to a place he once knew.

Where they kicked up sand until they choked or sang until their voices gave out. Where they danced like idiots and sweat through their shirts so much that not even the ocean breeze could cool them down. Where Yeosang watched and there was always one other friend to be with him on the sidelines.

On the pier, there are two boys. With a stereo in between them blasting some unidentifiable music, they perform some sort of impromptu dance that really isn’t much of a dance. Just them wiggling their limbs and shaking their hips. One of them removes his jacket and twirls it around above his head, making the other laugh.

Their blue jeans of different shades are stained at the knees and their eyes are so tired, but they’re laughing and having fun just like any pair of friends would when they don’t have to work and there is no one else around to see them.

-

Yeosang sees red whenever he looks down.

His red Converse, his red jacket. It’s his favorite color.

He’s disappointed whenever he looks up because the stars are never there for him.

When looks down and watches as he puts one foot in front of the other, he feels somewhat comforted knowing that he at least has his color.

He should probably wash his jacket soon. It’s getting dirty.

-

The sun is blazing now. It must be summer.

Yeosang has tied his jacket around his waist. He’s back in town, one that he recognizes. One that he’s been to many times before, so many times that he recognizes the faces and voices he sees and hears.

He recognizes this man from behind.

The man is always at the same cemetery, standing over the same gravestone. When Yeosang sees him around town, he recognizes the voice and the white hair with unkempt roots that looked so brittle, like it could fall out at any time.

It’s the same man, but his hair is electric blue now.

Yeosang stands under a nearby tree and watches the man. He’s carrying a single candle with white wax and a single red rose.

Yeosang doesn’t know how long he’s there for, but the blue-haired man sits at the grave until the sun sets. With the sun gone, Yeosang puts his jacket back on.

The sky is still starless.

Yeosang hears a click. The blue-haired man has set the candle down and lit it. With a deep inhale, he lays the flower down at the base of the stone.

“You would’ve been twenty-three this year.”

 _So young_ , Yeosang thinks.

The blue-haired man looks up at the starless sky and smiles.

“You loved nights like these.”

Yeosang looks up with him and wonders just who would love a starless sky.

The blue-haired man looks down at the flickering candle. A swift breeze passes over, extinguishing the flame. He gasps silently.

“Happy birthday. I hope that wherever you are, the stars are shining. You were always obsessed with those things.” He smiles and looks up again, and Yeosang thinks he can see tears. “There are so many up there right now. I hope you can see them.”

Yeosang looks up again, expecting to see what the man is talking about.

There are still no stars.

-

A star is a star. They are not symbols of hope or things to be chased, no matter how much one may wish upon them.

There is a risk that comes with chasing anything. Danger lies ahead no matter where you go.

Stars burn. They have an expiration date. Some fall to the earth. They die.

He only knows a starless sky.

Because for as long as he can remember, the night sky has always been starless.

**Author's Note:**

> well. there ya go.
> 
> had absolutely nothing to do with the actual storyline but y'know? athena's brand: angst
> 
> and this is what u get
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/galaxysangs)


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